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The 5 Harsh Realities of Becoming a Professional Speaker

The realities of becoming a professional speaker are fraught with challenges. Suit up & let's work out how to make it work for you!

Right now I'm sitting in a friends place in Adelaide Australia prepping for a presentation I am giving tomorrow night to over 500 year 12 graduates, parents, students and friends.

I'm something out of sorts over this presentation. Why? Because I know some of them will be challenged by the way that I think and the way that I present. Especially since its a rural country town that still seems to be stuck in the past to some degree on social acceptance for individuals of different nationalities and sexual preferences.

So what has this got to do with the harsh realities of becoming a professional speaker? Everything! Consider the following...

Harsh Reality No 1. Your Presentations Will Always Push Someone's Buttons - And you know what? That's your job. You are not doing your job as a professional speaker if you aren't challenging your audiences thought processes. They are attending a presentation to learn a new way of thinking, to expand their knowledge and find out what other options they have to do a task they may have been struggling with for years, such as growing their business. Don't spoon feed them the same boring old crap. You'll never get booked to return.

Harsh Reality No2. How to Get Booked as a Public Speaker - The reality is that even some of the top professional speakers sometimes struggle to get well paid bookings. If you want to speak at regular events (and get paid for them) you will need to put the hard yards in. If you're not known in your sector contact every professional association you can find and propose you do a free twenty minute presentation at their next event. To make sure you get the gig, write articles around the topic in question to prove that you know what you're talking about. If you're yet to be paid as a speaker, don't be afraid to do it for free until you start getting booked from the events you're doing pro-bono. This can be one of the fastest strategies you can apply to kick-start your speaking career. If no one is seeing you speak then they won't book you. Ah derr!

Harsh Reality No 3. Event Organisers that Don't Have a Speakers Budget - The fact of the matter is that you will get asked quite frequently to speak for free. Just don't make it a habit of saying yes to every free event that pops up. I speak at over 60 events per year and 95% of them are paid. I only do free events from time to time because I want to support a particular group or, the speaking opportunity could result in prospective media exposure or exposure to a market that I'm keen to break into. The alternative to doing them for free is to offer a minimum purchase on a book or product of yours. The organiser can then use it to attract attendees to the event. I recently sold 100 copies of my book, 'Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business' to a group I spoke at. All 100 attendees had my book in their hands as a booking bonus. There is no better exposure than having your whole audience walk away with something tangible that they can remember you by.

Harsh Reality No 4. 95% of Your Time Will Be Spent Sourcing Speaking Engagements - A huge percentage of your time is going to be prospecting for new speaking engagements. This includes; submitting regular press releases to position yourself as an authority on your subject matter, writing and submitting articles to magazines, attempting to get regular columns in trade journals or internal company magazines, networking and picking up the phone and speaking to event organisers. Even if you have a speakers bureau looking after you, it is still up to you to build your profile. Usually speakers bureaus will also be promoting an array of other speakers at the same time. Your objective is to be heard consistently by your prospective market so when it comes time to book someone, they go straight to you.

Harsh Reality No 5. To Get Booked as a Professional Speaker, You Will Need to... You will need to write proposals that hit the mark. This means either speaking with the event organisers over the phone and finding out exactly what they are seeking from your presentation or meeting with them in person. Don't offer them a stock standard version of your proposal tailor it or this will reduce your chances greatly of conversion. Ask them questions about their audience, feedback they've had from previous events and the current challenges faced by their target market. This will allow you to write a speakers proposal that they can't refuse.

Ok, so enough about the harsh realities of becoming a professional speaker. If you seek real advice, subscribe to my 'In Bed with Ben Blog' & make sure you grab a copy of my new book, 'Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business.' Between these two resources you will know everything you need to when it comes to becoming a professional speaker and an understanding of what it really takes to stand out in this cluttered marketplace.

What of my High School Graduation Presentation? Well, you'll just have to wait and see! :-)

Posted by Ben Angel on 8th December, 2009 | Comments | Trackbacks
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