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Communicate with Confidence
Communicate with Confidence (CWC) is a program
developed by the National Association of Insurance Women,
International, (NAIW) to teach public speaking.
Originally entitles Let's All Communicate Effectively
(LACE), the program was revised, updated and the title
changed to CWC in the mid-70's. It is estimated that
roughly over 20,000 students have completed the 7-week
classroom study program in the history of the program.
Each class focus on a speaking skill such as
microphone techniques, speech content, gestures, or
timing and each class the student must prepare and
deliver a 3:00 minute speech on a pre-assigned topic.
Prepared speeches must last at least 2:46 minutes and not
go over 3:15 seconds. Speeches, which are over or under
the allotted time frame, are subject to time penalties.
At the conclusion of the prepared speech, the student is
given a word or a phrase and must deliver a one minute
impromptu speech on the subject.
At the conclusion of the class, the graduation
ceremony includes a "speak off" of the class
participants in front of the general membership. Judges,
from outside the local association, participate and
select a winner based on multiple part criteria which
includes time, gestures, contents, addressing the topic,
eye contact, etc. The winners of these speak off contests
represents their local association at a State Conferences
held in September. Similar contests are held at Regional
Conferences, in March, for the winners of State Contests.
These Regional winners go onto the National Convention,
in June, for a final competition among the nine Regions
of NAIW. A different topic is assigned for each level of
competition and naturally, the impromptu topics change as
well. The topics are published at the beginning of the
year and are chosen by the National Associations
President Elect.
The 1997 National Speak-off Topic:
"With National
Scrutiny on our industry,
what pathway would you propose in resolving the
seemingly conflicting demands of:
- Corporate profitability
- Consumer advocacy, and
- Public good
What follows is the written text of the 1997
winning speech given by Cindy McCool, June 25th in
San Antonio, at the NAIW National Convention.
Picture the headline if you will. "Polly
Klass is abducted from her home in
Petaluma…Insurance Company offers reward for
information leading to her whereabouts". Sadly,
we never saw this in print; not because the facts
aren't true but because the company didn't want to
compromise the flow of information by advertising
their good works.
It's no secret, we have a poor image. Partly
because the press paints our industry as a greedy
monopoly with deep pockets, because the nature of
news is conflict. The public buys into this
broad-brush approach and not the actions of
individual insurance professionals, like you.
Our industry operates with conflicting demands of
corporate profitability, consumer advocacy and public
good. As individuals we can't resolve all of these
conflicts. Biut we can improve our image! We have to
show the consumer that buying insurance is like
buying an other commodities, but unlike Coca-Cola,
you don't consume Insurance, you buy it to protect
your assets.. It's a purchase made for promise of a
future act.
We also need to promote our individual efforts.
Not only do we pay claims, we work at food banks, we
plant trees after fire, we teach bicycle safety, we
deliver huge dollars when someone dies or is disabled
and the consumer needs to know. And when that
Mini-Van runs into the test wall on TV and it's
airbags deploy, the consumer needs to know that is
the insurance industry at work. And when Auto
manufactures redesign headrests to make them safer,
the consumer needs to know that is our industry! To
advertise these good works we need to invite the
press to our events. But not news writers, rather we
should inviteFeature writers to our event. Feature
writers dwell on the story and people, not conflict
which is the nature of hard news. Feature writers
could promote how we pay claims.
We also need to educate the consumer. Simple as it
sounds, it's a huge task and each one of you
is involved in this every day. With increased public
outreach and improved relations with the press,
advertising our good works our image is bound to
improve. With improved communications and
understanding consumer advocacy sould be less
frequent. I'm not asking you to dazzle them your
footwork, I'm promoting information and education to
communicate what we are already doing.
After all, if perception is reality, isn't it up
to us to change how the consumer perceives our image?
And, if image is everything, as many people claim,
then we have the power to change this image!
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Cindy McCool, June, 1997
NAIW (National Association of Insurance Women)
National "Communicate with Confidence"
speech winner
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