Introduction
Becoming a public speaker is an excellent career. The market for professionals in this business is growing as more and more businesses seek professionals to help motivate and inspire employees. Public speaking is not for everyone. Those that have something to offer, though, can use that wisdom to empower others.
In order to start a public speaking career, it is vitally important to know what you have to offer and to market your skills accordingly. This takes careful planning and commitment. Through the resources that you find here, you can begin to structure your own speaking career that will far outweigh your expectations.
The goal is to be able to sell yourself. You are developing a business and the product you are selling is your experience, your motivation and yourself. When you can take advantage of everything life has thrown in your way and educate others on those experiences, you can become an effective public speaker making a solid amount of money in the process. We'll help you to do just that.
The key is to understand what you have to offer and then to market yourself effectively. Once you have an understanding of this principle, you can easily apply it throughout your life and find the calls for public speeches coming in to you rather than you seeking them. Developing this type of skill means examining yourself and your past. It means developing something to offer to others. What have you done or experienced that can help you to inform, educate or motivate others with?
Grasp that idea and you are half way to making yourself a successful public speaker. You do not have to be rich and famous, though you may end up being just that after you have begun seeing growth in your business. You do not have to have any skills; you can learn those.
Most importantly, you can be successful by simply applying what you know and believe to your determination to have a successful career.
This book will help to show you how to accomplish that goal. Apply what you learn here to real life and within a matter of speeches, literally, you will have begun to forge a way into a successful business.
Chapter 1: Is There A Market For Your Knowledge?
In the second chapter we will talk more about what type of skills you have that you can share with others through public speaking. Before you head there, consider why you should seek out this type of career and how you can be successful at it.
Public speaking has increased in demand in various locations around the country, if not the world. Public speakers do not have to be famous in terms of what their name is, but they have to have something unique to offer to others out there. When this is seen by a company, organization or other group as being something worth listening to, the demand for your speech rises.
Why this happens is simple. The business owner or the organization sees that something that you have to offer could offer benefit to those that would be listening to you speak. That inspires them to hire you.
One of the first keys to remember about being successful in the field of public speaking is to know what the buyer of your service is looking for.
What Is The Buyer Looking For?
If you were to be hired to provide a product to a client, you would need to understand what needs that client has so that you can tailor your product to meet those needs and to therefore fulfill the buyer's demand.
In public speaking, you need to understand what the audience is looking for when giving a speech. Before you can do that, you must understand what the person or group that will hire you is looking for. Since they hire you, you should be able to meet their goals.
In order to do this, understand what the organization hiring you is looking for in a qualified public speaker. In an interview with the organization, they are likely to want to gather facts about you. Some of those facts include these qualifications.
Do you have a topic that is right for their audience?
The company hiring you is looking for you to accomplish some goal. This could be motivating their employees or it could be an educational goal. Regardless, do you meet that goal for them?
Do you have references to back you up?
The company wants to be sure that you have references, some type of qualification to be there doing what you are doing. You may be wondering where this is going to come from. It will be something addressed later by this book. For now, realize that you have to be a proven success to the company hiring you.
Do you have an effective way to communicate your message?
Here, they want to be sure that you can drive home a winning presentation. Most want to have public speakers that are able to provide audio and visual demonstrations and materials to really bring out their point.
Do you offer the ability to customize your message?
If you are speaking to a group of employees, will you be able to customize your message to that company? Doing so can really be an effective way to bring in the information that the company is looking for. Many companies today are hiring professionals to do just that.
Are you able to hold the attention of the audience?
In short, you do have to be somewhat of an entertainer in order to be successful. Organizations are looking for people that will stimulate thoughts and goals, but that will do it in a way that is enjoyable. Few companies will hire you to bore their audience. A good way for this to happen is to involve the audience in the presentation.
What fee do you charge and what does it include?
The bottom line for most professionals in public speaking is that they need to sell their speaking abilities to make a living. But, organizations hiring you to do so will question if the value of what you are providing is worth the cost that you are charging. A big, well known name brings in more money, but so does a creative approach. Also, most organizations want to be sure that you are providing them with all that you can which means appearances before and after to talk to guests as well as an overall willingness to go above and beyond.
Organizations demand quality products and services. They want to be provided with the best of the best. If you can meet this need, the demand for your services is very high.
Chapter 2: What Do You Have To Share?
The public speaker that is most successful is one that conveys his message from experience. Passion can truly be found in these personal experiences. But, what do you have to offer?
To gauge just what it is that you can present to those looking, start by looking closely at your life. Take stock, if you will, of where you are and where you came from. This will give you the best opportunity to find that perfect niche that you will be able to communicate to.
Look Into Your Past
Start by looking into your past. Most people do not have a very simple, non emotional or non tragic past in that they can not find something to share about it. You too may have something there to use.
Here are some ideas to consider in terms of what you may have accomplished or areas of experience that you may have but do not realize that you have them. Take stock of your own experiences using this reference.
• What goals have you set for yourself in the past? Have you achieved them and if not, why not? Why did you set those goals? What helped you to honor them? What did having those goals do for you in the long run?
• What have you achieved? Did you graduate from college? Perhaps you have honors from military experience. What was it like to get that first job that was successful? Perhaps you achievements lie in the family unit such as getting married and having children. Perhaps you made your first million before the age of 30. What aspects of your life do you consider achievements?
• What are you passionate about in your past? For example, perhaps you were passionate about your child's education and it paid off. Perhaps your religion is the founding principles you have used in your business. Perhaps your business itself has been your passion for years and taught you something. Looking back over the last ten years, what aspects of your life were you passionate about? Why?
• What did you learn from your past experiences? For example, what did you learn about raising your children? What did you learn when you failed miserably at your first business plan? What did you learn about yourself over the years? Most often, people do not realize just how powerful their past was in shaping the future. Has this happened for you? How so?
• What failures did you have? Sometimes the most prominent memories are of those negative aspects in our past. Yet, they are also the most likely to shape your future. What negative or failure type situations were you in? How did that change you? Why did it happen and would you even avoid it if you could today? Where are you today beyond this point?
Perhaps the very best experiences are those that come from the big things. For example, if you started your first company at the age of 20 and made a million by 25, you definitely did something big and that should be taken stock of. If you do have something big like this in your past, draw from it as this often helps push the success even farther.
Yet, you do not have to have something amazing behind you in your past or present that is big and glorious. The fact is that even average experiences in your lifetime can give you enough material, information and experience to provide for your speeches. It is not necessarily the actual experience but the way that you perceive it; deal with it as well as overcome it that matters.
Why Does It Matter?
How can ordinary, boring life events help you to become a public speaker? It may seem like a stretch but the fact is that people love to hear about other people's successes and failures. They use this information to help define their own abilities both positively and negatively.
More so, an average person just like them accomplishing great things through experiences that they too have experienced is a connection tool like no other.
For example, perhaps tragedy struck your family when your father lost his job. Your family did not have the funds for anything. The way that this situation is handled by you defines who you are and that's what you want to get at later in your speeches.
You could approach the subject about how this taught you humility and defined the person that you are today, for example. Perhaps it helped you to be so frugal in your business that you managed to be more successful than the next guy because of it.
Simply define for yourself what it was like to overcome life and it’s most difficult of situations. Things like the loss of a loved one, dealing with fear, dealing with financial ruin and even dealing with rejection are all basic levels of emotions that many people go through in their lifetime.
Not only does this give you a tool by which to work from, but it helps you to gain the necessary resources to truly inspire others with through a connection. If you struggled with fear, they can bond with you on that level because they have done so at some time. This can ultimately be one of the best ways to communicate with those that you are speaking with.
When you are looking back into your past, ask yourself what it means to be a motivational or other type of public speaker. You need to have material that will help you to get your message out there. Some public speakers gather facts and figures from the world to use.
Others, the most powerful ones, do not do this. They use personal experience to fuel their speeches. They do this because it is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with those you are speaking to. It allows you to show that you have the same experiences as they have had. Now, you can show them the right way to deal with those experiences.
Chapter 3: What Can You Offer To The Masses?
Now that you have taken some time to really define who you are, you need to find a way to provide others with something useful from those experiences.
One thing to remember here is this. No matter how successful you think you are chances are that no one is going to pay you to talk about your past life experiences. Sure, this can be part of your material to use, but some underlying benefit must come through. It is up to you to determine what that ultimately should be, though.
How can you take your life experiences and make them into something that is wanted and needed by your audience members?
We have mentioned the processes of working with connections where you are able to use your own personal experiences to draw a connection to the other person listening to you speak. This is important because you want them to know that you do have some experience and know what you are talking about.
But, moving to the next step is more challenging. Now, you must take your experiences and convey your personal feelings with them. Remember, although there are many professionals out there looking forward to a career in public speaking, it is also important to note that no one wants to sit and hear your story without some meaning. How many people have you had to sit through listening to them talk to you about their life? Most people will do this without costing the listener a penny!
What Can Your Speeches Do?
The bottom line is this. Your speeches must do something for the listener. This could be as simple as motivating them or it could be teaching them a lesson. The goal is that you must first connect with the audience then deliver a message to them.
Developing that message is very important, but often times difficult to do. The first step is to analyze your own information in terms of what it has done for you.
Here's an example of what you can do. Let's say that your family did get into a tight financial situation as you were aging. At that time in your life, it was up to you, the oldest male, to get out and find a job even though you were only 13 to help support your family.
This was difficult and trying for you but you were able to be successful and founded your first business by the time that you were just 18.
What did that experience teach you about life? What characteristics did you have to have to excel in that tough time? All of those situations are what define the message that you can provide to those around you listening to your speech.
Many speeches will have one of several goals:
• They will help to solve the problems of the listener.
• They will help to listener to set and achieve goals that they set.
• They will help the listen to improve their lives in some way.
• They will help to motivate.
• They will help to teach a lesson.
Sometimes, it will become necessary for you to actually take your speech and morph it into one or more of these above goals. For example, at one organization you may be working with goal setting where as with another it may be talking about leadership. It is up to you to determine how to make such a change and why to make that the case. This can be challenging to some people that have not taken the time to really define their abilities.
That is something that you can do. You must define what your past experiences have taught you that you can convey to others that will in some way improve their lives on a big or small scale.
Developing Your Niche
For those that know anything about internet marketing, the key to being successful is finding your niche, or that place where you will share what information and resources you can with those around you. Success in that field requires that you specialize your marketing so that you are putting as much effort (and money) towards that one goal as possible, thus giving you more resources behind one goal instead of many resources behind many goals spreading it too thin for success.
In the world of public speaking, you too must develop a niche from which you will work with. This is up to you to determine in terms what it is based on your experiences that we have talked about.
Realize first that most people that walk in to the building, sit down and wait to hear you speak are more skeptical of you than you are of them. In that comes the fact that they will want to prove you wrong before believing that you are right.
One of the biggest ways to turn someone off from you is to promise them that what you are about to tell them is going to solve all of the problems that they experience in their life. The larger and more all encompassing your promise is, the more unlikely you are to be believed.
For example, let's say that you want to talk to a group of people through a local organization. But, you just want to have an overall motivational speech without a direct topic to speak about. So, you walk in and you see all types of people in your audience.
When your speech begins, you begin to play to all of their needs. "What I have to say will help you to lose weight, to live a longer life and to solve all of your financial problems." This is not believable and from that moment on, they are untrusting of what you have to say.
Instead of doing this, what you must do is focus your speech on the topics that are the most important for your group. Develop your niche, your target area of focus that all other materials you have will point to.
One of the most common and best examples is that of helping people to be leaders. If leadership is your niche, then you can talk to all types of people with the same topic.
Does that mean you can not talk about those other topics? Of course, not! But it means that you are developing a specific field that your speeches will revolve around.
Why does it matter so much if you have a select area in which you will be talking about in all of your speeches? It helps to define you as an expert in the field. People enjoy talking with experts and they are much more likely to believe you if you say that that is what you are.
When you have selected your niche, you will develop your speeches and all of your talks about that one topic. The topic is up to you, and it should be something you are passionate about and something that comes directly from your personal experiences.
Choosing a niche is the best way for you to concentrate your efforts and become a known leader in that field. If you are an expert at team building, an expert at sales building or even an expert at being positive, that is the field that people will come to you seeking help from.
Consider the fact. If you were to spend your company's money to bring someone in to talk, do you want an expert in the field to be the one to talk?
The process is fairly straightforward:
• Determine what in your past can be used to be your material in your speech. What do you have to offer to those that come to listen?
• Determine what you can offer from that material in terms of giving to your listeners? How will you improve their lives with your own experiences?
• What niche will it be that you take on to help demonstrate your experiences? What topic will you focus your energies to in order to become an expert in and become known for?
Once you have accomplished these goals, you should have a fairly clear idea of where your speeches are going to be located in terms of content. You will know what you want to say and how you will communicate it based on your experiences. Take the time to work through this process to develop speech content that is wanted and desired by those that will listen to you speak!
Chapter 4: Developing Your Target Audience
It is a great feeling knowing that you have something great to share with those around you. When you have worked through the elements in the last chapters, you should have just that to work with.
At this point, you do not need to have an exact speech written, but you should have some idea of what you are able to offer to those that will come to listen to you talk. Ultimately, writing your speech will revolve around all of those topics as well as one more: who your audience is.
Defining who your target audience is can be difficult to do. There are likely to be ideas in your head that could be shared with a wide variety of people, including various ages, groups and ways of life. But, you can not develop a niche that will work for anyone. You must tailor it more so to your targeted audience.
Who Will Listen To You?
In short, you want to know who it is that will listen to what you have to say. Realize that you can not give the same speech to a high paid set of real estate agents and then give the same speech to a group of teenagers (all of which could be your audience one day.) Instead, you must tailor your speech to compensate for the type of people that are most likely to receive your message.
This is why it is important to have your niche worked out. You will need it to determine who you actually audience is. In many situations, this starts with your message, too. Your niche will help you to see who can benefit from you.
The example of leadership is a good one. This niche can be used in a wide range of different types of groups, but you want to try and focus that down to a smaller group of people. This target audience will be the group that you write your speech to. Remember you are likely to give that same speech to various groups and organizations over your public speaking career!
You can define your target audience in several ways. Any of these ways can be used, but we recommend that you seek out your own specific niche driven characteristics too.
Some of your options include:
• Define your audience by their age
• Define your audience by where they live
• Define your audience by their job type
• Define your audience by their gender
• Define your audience by their religious or culture
• Define your audience by their interests
• Define your audience by what their needs are
The list can go on and on. Your goal is to define the people in your audience in terms of what they can learn from you. If you are talking about leadership, you may want to strive to talk to business owners, managers and others in similar fields. But, your leadership speech may also work for teenagers or even elementary children looking to develop these qualities.
Now that you have the understanding of where your target audience is, you can begin working on developing a speech that is specific to that target.
Later you can change things to include other audience groups. In fact this is a great way to market yourself. But, start with one area first and then work beyond later.
Who Wants To Listen To You?
Beyond finding your own target audience, it is also important to understand that some people will seek you out. Who is likely to do this? That depends on the niche that you have, the marketing that you do as well as what you have to offer.
Having someone want to listen to you comes from having experiences to offer and a concise, well structured plan to make it happen. Consider your skills from your perspective as well as from that of the person that will come to listen to you.
What type of audience you wish to communicate with is different than the type of audience is most likely to want to listen to you. For example, you may feel that working with college students is a great way to get your leadership message out. But, other groups may also see you as a potentially useful speaker out of this range.
Therefore, consider who your target audience is from both your view as well as that from your likely listeners. Once you establish this, you can begin developing an effective speech that will deliver to all of these groups.
Chapter 5: Writing Your Speech Effectively
At this point, you should know who your target audience is as well as know what you can offer them by exploring your past. The next step is to work closely with finding the right method of communicating with that audience.
Writing your speech could be the biggest put off for many public speakers. For some people, a handful of notes are all that is needed and speaking off the cuff, so to speak is their best method of communication. For a seasoned professional, this method works just fine if you feel comfortable with it. For someone just starting out, we do not recommend starting off in this way.
Instead, you have to have a fully written speech that you can clearly see your flow of thought and progression through from the starting topic to the final conclusion. This is hard to do with just notes when you have not yet practiced your speech.
Therefore, it is highly recommended that you take the time to write out your speech and work through the process until you have several speeches given all delivered with good results. If you do not do this, chances are you'll struggle.
I Can't Write It
Many aspiring speech writers can do all of the work of pulling out their personal experiences and can see what they are offering their listeners clearly. Where they struggle is getting those thoughts and plans on to paper.
Not everyone can write an effective speech even if you can visualize most of it in your mind. This is okay and should be seen as an opportunity, not a drawback. Many successful public speakers do not do their own speech writing but do work closely with a professional to get the work written to the level that they require.
If you feel that you can not write your own speech, take a step back and consider the benefits as well as the drawbacks of hiring a professional to do this type of work for you.
One of the first benefits is that hiring a professional will help you to get the best possible work for your speech delivery. This means that you will have a professional by your side creating the speech that you need and making it as effective as possible.
This often helps you to get the highest quality speech that you can and therefore gives you the best results with your listeners and speech attendees. This benefit is one that you should highly consider because it can help to make you a successful public speaker.
But there are some drawbacks to consider in hiring a professional to help you to write your speech. One of those is that you will need to have the means to pay the professional to work with you. Speech writing is not an overly expensive investment, but it will be a considerable out of pocket expensive for most people.
You will need to weigh these considerations to determine if it is worth working with a professional to do your speech writing for you or if not.
How To Hire A Professional Writer
The key to making these drawbacks work is having the right person working with you. If you do decide to go ahead and have a professional do the work for you, the best course of action is find the right person to work with you.
Not just any writer will do. There are several considerations to take into account here.
One On One Experience
You need to work with a professional that is capable of providing you with a one on one experience. In order to communicate your feelings, experiences and speech goals to them, this means working side by side with them. While email and over the phone conversations are okay, a meeting is the best way to communicate these needs.
The sound of your voice really will deliver the best level of communication between you and the speech writer. This way, they can really understand what you are looking for and help you to achieve those goals.
Experience Also Matters
Having a professional to talk with you one on one is great, but you should know as much as you can about that writer as well. It is your goal to determine if they have the means of communicating at the level that you need. Do they have the skills that you need? Do they have the ability to write an effective speech for you?
A good way to gauge this is in an interview with the professional. You want to ask them questions about their experience and their skill. You also want to know what type of success others have had that has had speeches written for them by this particular writer.
Based on these answers and considerations, you can then hire them if you select to do so. We recommend getting references and checking them from the potential writer. After all, you are investing heavily in them!
Liking Them
Believe it or not, it can be a great resource for you if you like the person that you are writing with. Being able to communicate well with those around you is a key element in being successful. Liking the person that you work with will help that to happen.
There is no need to be overly personal with them, but you should enjoy what you see coming from them. For example, you want to see that they are committed to you and willing to work around your specific needs. Anything else is not going to give you the best overall results.
Using A Contract
The best way to work with any professional is through a contract. Using a contract will help you to ultimately craft the best plan for the speech and will help to establish guidelines that both you and the speech writer can agree on. It also provides you with the necessary resources in case things do not work out with the speech writer as planned. Most importantly, it outlines costs.
When it comes to the cost of hiring a speech writer, ask the professionals you interview for a flat fee quote. This gives you the best pricing possible and a straight answer. Incorporate that quote into your contract to be sure that all guidelines are met.
Write Yourself
Although you can find a variety of people to write your speech for you, perhaps the best route to take is to write the speech yourself. The benefits here are numerous in that you can convey the message that works the best for you. Can anyone really tell that funny story the way that you do?
If you do decide to write it yourself, there are many resources available on the web to help you including resources that can help you to craft the speech around your particular scenario. Use these services to help you to write an effective speech.
Then, practice is. You will want to find a trusted yet honest friend to read your speech to. Not considering your personal stance, they should tell you how effective the speech is. This gives you the best opportunity to see results later.
Chapter 5: Become An Effective Public Speaker
Being an effective speaker has a lot to do with the way that you speak to others. No matter how effective your speech is on paper, unless you can give it life, chances are that it will not be received in the right manner.
Even though you may be nervous when you walk out onto the stage to deliver your message, you must not let it show to your listeners. Most professional speakers do feel nerves every once in a while, but what makes them effective is not letting it show. Master this and you will be half way to making yourself a professional.
What It Takes To Pull It Off
Pulling off a successful speaking career starts with having the right combination of speaking skills. Characteristics about you can help to make this possible. It is up to you to create the right reputation for yourself and having these qualities can help you to accomplish that.
One of those qualities is having confidence. People that are confident are easy to spot. They meet your eyes when speaking to you. They walk with their head held high. They exude a confident posture as well as a confident voice.
To obtain this type of confidence, you must believe in what you are saying and believe in what you are doing. No one can sell something effectively that they do not believe in and create lasting results. Be passionate about your message and become an expert at it.
The next character trait that you will need is likeability. Your listeners want to like you. When they do, they do not question what you say. They enjoy being there and they talk about you later. Likeability is a hard characteristic to just have, as it can take some time for anyone to develop it in public speaking.
To be likeable, you need to be someone that others look towards for answers and information but do it in a positive, upbeat manner. You should be outgoing, happy and smiling. You need to be positive, have an upbeat tone to your voice and look at your listeners closely. Pay attention to what they say to you and show that you care about them. This creates a positive and motivating characteristic that can help you to become a professional public speaker.
The person that is enjoyed and entertaining is the one that is most often welcomed back for more and more speaking opportunities. This is the person that will be talked about to other companies, too.
Yet another important characteristic of public speaking is expertise. You gain credibility when you are able to convey that you are an expert on your topic. If you plan to talk to your listeners about leadership, you should have something to back you up on this.
What if your personal history is not enough to create this credibility element? Then, develop your own abilities. You can spend the next months working to develop your expertise level. Read and learn all that you can. Write a book on the topic. Create press releases of the information and put together an informational website that is packed with information, paid or otherwise.
You can develop your own expertise level by showcasing all of these tools to others. Even if your name is never heard of, having this type of background and resources for your listeners helps them to believe that you are a leader and that you are an expert in that field. Many motivational speakers do just this and not only make a profit from public speaking but also from the sales of their books and marketing they do online.
Having enthusiasm is also important to pull together a successful public speaking career. Everyone has experienced the person that talks in a monotone voice, conveying their message in a boring and steady conversation. That is not enthusiasm. In fact, this could be a downfall for the person.
Enthusiasm about your topic means you need to be passionate about it. You have to convey this message to your listeners as you speak to them. They get people to react in some way whether through laughing and participating or through making them angry, frustrated and then delivering a solution.
Enthusiasm is about asking questions that provoke thinking and about driving people to the solutions that they need to have. Most importantly, it is about really enjoying the topic and being able to convey that message to others.
Learn How To Do It
You may be thinking that you simply do not have the tools and the know how to do these things on your own. Do not worry; there are many solutions for this situation. One is heading off to school.
Many colleges and universities will offer public speaking courses that can be taken at various times of the day. These can provide you with several key benefits including the ability to practice your speaking in front of other, real people. The practice you get here can be used to help you to improve on weak points that you may not even know you have.
Most community colleges even offer this type of course. Consider looking for them and enrolling to help improve your level of ability to speak.
You may also want to look for and join organizations that surround themselves with public speaking abilities. For example, find out if there are any Toastmasters meetings in your area. This group is an internationally well known group that is also non profit. They help people to improve and develop speaking skills through weekly or monthly meetings. These are experts that you can work with that can help give you the experience you need.
Polishing your speaking skills is an essential part of becoming a speaker. Even if you are not nervous and are not worried about your skill, some experience in these forums can make a huge difference.
Chapter 6: Promoting You
Now that you have some experience and confidence in your skills, you can begin showcasing them to the public. At this point, you should know what you have to offer and have your speech written. Then, you need to head out and find those that will allow you to speak for them.
Promoting yourself should be done tastefully, professionally and without spending a small fortune, unless you plan to do this. At this point, you want to have some tools to help you to accomplish this.
Developing Promotional Material
A key to marketing yourself is having promotional material to hand out to perspective clients. This includes several key things for most professional speakers.
• An Informational Package
• A Demo Tape
These two elements should be able to tell everyone who you are and what you can offer to them. Putting this together can help anyone to showcase their skills in a neat bundle. Do not over look the benefits that come from this type of marketing set up.
Demo Tapes
Demo tapes are a traditional part of the marketing package of a professional speaker. Once you are a professional with speeches in your pocket, you can create a second demo tape that will provide you with even better quality.
For the amateur, starting with your own simple video recording is enough to open doors for you. The best way to make this happen is to simply record one or more of your speeches with a tripod set up in the back of the room, recording you.
In some situations, beginning speech writers will do free speeches on their topics to gain experience. This can also be a great time to get your demo tape put together. Be sure that it is always your best performance in the eyes of the audience rather than your own opinion.
Also, when you do begin doing speeches, be sure to set up a follow up meeting with the organization that has allowed you to do so. Ask them about strengths and weaknesses so you know which aspects you need to work on first.
If you do decide to go with a professionally done demo tape, work with a company that is selected based on previous successes. Anyone can set up that tripod, but you will want a company that will provide you with the graphics and "finishing work" that will really make your tape stand out. They should be able to help you to get various copies of your speech as well.
Informational Package
The next tool that you need for your promotional package is your informational package. This tool is used to showcase your skills and abilities on paper, rather than on the demo tape. You should have both elements, though, when presenting your skills to potential clients.
The informational package includes a range of materials but can be easily put together in a two pocket folder. This folder will contain a variety of pieces of paper all working for you.
These include the following:
• An introduction letter: introduce yourself and what you are presenting in this letter. It should tell clients who you are, what you can offer them and why you are doing so.
• Your Resume: Have it professionally written for you so that the strengths that you talk about in your speech are what come through when the resume is read by the client.
• Your photo: Have this professionally done so that you look like a high end professional. You want to come off as being someone that is confident, comfortable with what they are doing and approachable.
• Your business card: You can purchase business cards online through various organizations and they do not have to be the most elaborate or expensive type. Instead, look for quality and a professional image.
• A summary of your speech. Include a page that details what your speech has to offer. This can help you to not give away the whole speech but point out some interesting facts and attention grabbing details.
• References or testimonials: Including these will help to show the client that you are worth the investment. Most professionals will be able to generate these by doing several speeches for publicity rather than profit at the beginning of their careers. Continuously add these to your informational package as you do more speeches.
Some professional speakers want to be sure to drive the message home and to do that they include a small gift of some type that the client will receive in their informational package.
This can be something simple such as an inspirational card or it can be something like a small calendar or pad of paper. What is should provide is one key element. It should be able to offer your name, photo and contract information.
Hopefully, they will place this information on their desk and think of you to call when they decide they need a professional speaker on your topic. Do not over look the benefits of such a small thing like including your name on these materials!
Be sure that the informational package looks professional. Visit a stationary store to find a quality folder and be sure to have it printed with your contact information and a logo if you have one. It should be something that the client wants to open up to find out what it is that you have to offer to their organization.
Once you have promotional materials in hand, you can begin to sell yourself. To do this, work through all of what we have talked about thus far and put together the package!
Chapter 7: Speaking With Potential Clients
Creating a client base is an incredibly important element that anyone can do once they have all of their information put together as we have discussed in previous chapters.
The question is, where do your potential clients lie? There are actually many organizations and companies that you can work with to become a speaker through. You will want to explore any and all of the options in your area as well as around the world.
The cost of flying out to meet someone in another country can be high for a beginner. For this reason, make your first speeches places that you feel are affordable enough to visit. For example, if you live in New York, try to find companies in the New England region first. Later, branch out into companies farther away, after you have made enough profit to make it worthwhile.
There are a variety of company types that you can and should approach. Remember that at this stage of the process you are not well known and therefore will need to approach potential clients rather than having them approach you. That will change with experience.
Companies to contact include:
• Seminar companies
• Corporations
• Trade Shows
• Continuing educational departments of community colleges or universities
• Schools of all types
• Government organizations on all levels: city, county, state and federal level
• Colleges and universities in general
• Non profit organizations
• Convention set ups
• Travel firms which do promotional sales such as those in condominium investments or cruise lines
Approach companies that you know can benefit from the speech you have written. A topic of leadership, for example, can be showcased for many different types of people including professional and non professionals.
In the back of your mind, you also want to consider the costs that your speech will cost for these companies. The fact is you want to be within their reach in terms of affordability, but you do not want to be so inexpensive that you come off as desperate.
In terms of your value, base it upon your experience. At first, you may do many projects for nothing just to gain the experience. Then, increase your value as you go. Larger and more beneficial speeches that you have given and have under your belt will mean more profit over time.
Getting Into Contact
Getting into contact with these companies may be a struggle that you haven't thought about. What you are doing is approaching companies in the hope that they will see your benefit which usually means getting an interview with them. To do this, send your promotional material to them through one of several means:
• Phoning and speaking with someone that can make decisions about your service (keep trying until you get a meeting!)
• Faxing your information including contact information means giving them a piece of paper to use. Follow up with a phone call, always.
• Emailing your information is also acceptable assuming that you know which email address to use to reach a person that can make a decision about your services. You can often phone them to get this information as well as to follow up on your email.
What do you say to them? One of the key elements to present to them is an invitation to seek you speak. If you will be speaking at a community college this week, you should plan to invite as many area businesses and organizations to come and see your speak. This will provide you with the best way to showcase what you are to this new client.
Many will not be able to attend such a function, though. If they can not, they should be given your promotional materials and you should try to set up a personal interview with them. If they get your promotional materials and view the demo tape, they should have a good idea of what you can provide to their company!
They Will Approach You
You will know that you have finally reached the professional level when businesses begin to come to you to request that you speak to their group. This will happen. You can help that to happen, too.
The best way to make this happen is to simply become well known in your area. The more recognizable you can become within your area, the more important you become to area groups and companies.
To accomplish this step in the process, try to do any of these methods to gain your reputation.
• Contact area radio stations, television channels and newspapers. Find out if they will provide you with an interview. This will allow more people to learn your name and you instantly gain recognition as someone of authority.
• Write articles for your newspaper or even for local publications. You can even create your own if you are someone that has the financial backing to do just that. Being published on the topic will give you even more authority and name recognition.
• Design a website and promote it in your area. Use internet marketing online, but be sure to include your website on all promotional information that you send out as well as in all of your published work.
• Network with others in the community including professionals, government officials and other speakers. There are often networking events that you can attend. The more you put yourself out there, the more well known you will become. This makes you an important person!
• Free speeches can help you as well. Give these to groups that will benefit from them such as community groups that may not otherwise be able to afford your services.
• Develop and present your own seminars on the topic. This may take some time to put together to be a success, but it is a surefire way to get people to pay to see you speak. As you become more successful, you will be able to do this and then sell tickets to an audience that will pay well for them.
Soon, they will approach you, but before this can happen, you have to develop some level of community recognition. Determine the best way to do this for your area and make it happen.
Speaker's Bureaus
Another resource that you have is that of speaker's bureaus. These are organizations that are likely in your area (especially if you live near or in a big city) that will be able to help you to find work.
Their job is to help you the professional speaker to find places to present by marketing you to those that will need this type of service. The key to getting sponsored or represented by these types of organizations is to have some experience behind you. This is hard to do as a new speaker, but it can still happen for you.
Once you begin to put together a professional speaking résumé that has some larger firms on it, contact these organizations. They will tell you straightforward if they can help you or what you need to do in order for them to help you.
It is imperative that you consider this type of service as they often have banks of clients that they can showcase you to and therefore help you to gain more recognition over time.
The professional speaker will also want to have a contract set up with this type of company that is beneficial to the speaker. Often these companies will help you to find work for a fee. Depending on your level of experience and if you are in need of finding work or not, consider what they have to offer. Regardless of what the final contract is, get everything in writing and assume nothing. As a marketing firm, they may be misleading to you in some areas. But, for many people, they are ideal marketing resources.
Setting Your Rate
Setting the rate at which you will be paid is based on experience and how in demand what you have to offer is. Take the time to find out what other speakers in your area are making. You can do some research on what they have to offer as well as how this compares to what you have to offer.
Under-rating your skills and charging too less will cause them to see you as an inexperienced speaker looking to get work or someone that is desperate. On the other hand, someone that is overpriced won't be able to find work either. Finding that balance is crucial!
Over time you will develop a client base that will work with you and through them you can use referrals to keep your business going. You want them to talk about you so give them the means to do so including several copies of your business card.
Ultimately, clients will come to you and be well interested in working with you for various topics. Pulling off a successful speech is in fact the best way to market yourself!
Conclusion
The process of becoming a professional speaker is one that starts with your own skills. Do you have the drive in you to do the work to become a public speaker? If not, chances are that you will fail.
On the other hand, if you can see the benefits that are out there in doing this type of work such as being your own boss and being able to talk about something that you are passionate about, you will become successful.
Time is one of the most important elements to anyone that is looking to be a professional public speaker. Time is necessary to develop yourself through education and practice. Time is necessary to gain the reputation that you need and the experience that will help you to land bigger and better opportunities.
Yet, through that time, you will also become a well known, high quality speaker that delivers effective speeches. When people react to what you are speaking about, you know that you have entered the world of professional public speaking. Continuously improve your skills to keep yourself fresh for the next client!